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Kentucky Derby | Trainer Jose Garoffalo fled Venezuela

Having become increasingly dismayed with the state of thoroughbred racing in his native Venezuela — "There was a lot of fixing races," he said — trainer Jose Garoffalo decided he'd give up the sport for good in 1998 when the wrong horse won the wrong race.

Having become increasingly dismayed with the state of thoroughbred racing in his native Venezuela — "There was a lot of fixing races," he said — trainer Jose Garoffalo decided he'd give up the sport for good in 1998 when the wrong horse won the wrong race.

"They killed my horse," he said.

The horse's name was Santero.

"Somebody in the night jumped the fence at the barn and injected the horse in the chest," Garoffalo said. "After the injection he got a big infection, and three or four days later he died. … I remember I used to cry with the horse. You could see the tears. I used to feed him with my hand because he couldn't eat. He was so bad. He was swollen all over.

"After that happened, that's when I quit."

But it didn't take long for Garoffalo — who had been around horses all his life — to get back into the sport. With the urging of a couple of friends who owned horses, Garoffalo moved to the United States in 1999 and began training at Hialeah Park in Miami.

Fifteen years later he's in the sport's biggest race, as his Florida Derby runner-up Wildcat Red will run in Saturday's Kentucky Derby.

"It was a bad experience, but at the same time it was a good thing," the 50-year-old Garoffalo said of Santero's death. "It made me make the decision to quit and come here and start over again."

Garoffalo grew up around horses on a farm his father, Jose Sr., owned near his hometown of Caracas. Garoffalo said he always knew he'd make a career out of racing but also decided to get a law degree.

"I just wanted to do it to know things for my own personal improvement and for my own growth," he said. "But my mind wasn't in the law business. … I liked training horses. I liked the competition. And I love the animals. It was a no-brainer for me."

He first moved to the United States in 1988 and worked four years as an assistant under Angel Medina before returning to Venezuela to help run the family business.

He said life was good in Venezuela then and never planned to return to the United States.

"We had a good economy," he said. "We had democracy. Everything was nice. In our minds, we didn't think about immigration or going somewhere else."

But he said the racing industry was changing in the country as gamblers and bookies began to gain control.

And after the death of Santero — and with the financial backing of a couple of owners — he decided to leave Venezuela again.

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Fountain of Youth winner Wildcat Red renews his rivalry with General a Rod in Saturday's Florida Derby, which trainer Jose Garoffalo hopes is a launching pad to the First Saturday in May at Churchill Downs. By Jennie Rees

"If they're going to get rich, it's not with my effort and my money," Garoffalo said of the gamblers and bookies. "If they're going to get rich, do it with someone else. Not me."

He claimed his first horse, Redformer, for $12,500 and won his first race with him at Hialeah. He now has 25 horses stationed at Gulfstream Park.

He figures Wildcat Red — owned by fellow Venezuelans Salvatore and Josie Martino Delfino — will garner support from both sides of the grandstand Saturday, given the ties to the University of Kentucky (Wildcat) and the University of Louisville (Red) in the horse's name.

But for Garoffalo, the "Red" is a somewhat painful reminder of the political unrest and Communist influence in Venezuela.

"The red color, I don't like it too much from a political point of view," he said.

With Wildcat Red, he's hoping to give the people of Venezuela something to cheer about. Wearing a hat emblazoned with "Venezuela" and a jacket of his favorite baseball team — "Leones" — Garoffalo said horse racing ranks ahead of baseball and soccer as the country's favorite sport.

He recalls as a 7-year-old watching the Venezuelan horse Canonero II win the 1971 Kentucky Derby.

"Everybody talks about Canonero," Garoffalo said. "He's a legend. What they did with that horse is unbelievable. …

"I dream about that every day, and I'm working to reach that dream. It would be amazing (to win the Derby), especially with the country having a lot of problems right now. It would be good news among all the bad news. It would be a getaway from all those troubles, something different to read in the news."

Jason Frakes can be reached at (502) 582-4046 and followed on Twitter @kyhighs.